Chapter Thirty-Two

I ran down the grand staircase, not knowing what to expect. Would it be just Christian by himself? Where was Hugh? Did I need a gun?

What I saw in the entrance hall sent my feet stuttering over the marble. Thea and Nick and a team of Men in Black were entering the château with a caravan of shiny black SUVs sparkling in the sun behind them.

Hugh appeared from a side door and seemed to be sliding something into his waistband at the small of his back.

“Caroline.” Thea half jogged to me, pulling me into her arms and kissing me on each cheek. Then she turned to Hugh. “You’re off this project. Starting now.”

Hugh barely flinched, but I didn’t like the sound of that. “He’s on sabbatical. You can’t tell him what to do,” I told my domineering sister.

“Sabbatical? He volunteered for the assignment,” she said.

“Which he hasn’t completed yet,” Nick added.

Hugh’s jaw tightened and, when he shifted his gaze from his boss to me, I knew.

“You were working with them. You lied to me.” Oh, it was a shot through my heart. This heart, which had just started to feel again. It was incredibly bad timing.

“Caroline—” he said gruffly. But I didn’t need his explanations. He’d told me he was on sabbatical to try to get closer to me. He hadn’t told me about working with Thea because they wanted poor Caroline to believe she was doing something good for her family, for her country.

“Let’s go somewhere. The study, perhaps,” Thea suggested.

“That makes you, what, a triple agent?” I spat at Hugh. “How very adept you are at secrets.”

“The study. Now.” Thea used her princess voice, and miraculously, the two hardened, scowling security men next to us looked ready to immediately comply.

Me? I was immune to that royal bullshit now.

“You don’t tell me what to do. I’m on Sevine property.”

“Caroline.”

“I’m not a royal. You don’t control me.”

“No, I don’t,” Thea agreed.

“More’s the pity,” Nick muttered.

“Oh, shut up,” I snapped at him. “This is all because of you.” I heard Thea gasp, but I didn’t care. Sevine women didn’t have to bow to the Laurents, and certainly not to their boyfriends. “Christian was your younger brother and you were certainly responsible for his taking your title and becoming prince-worthy material.” Bringing up Nick’s past disappearance, even if it was because of his service to his country, might have been unfair but it was certainly relevant to the conversation. Everyone had played their part in this fiasco.

“We’re just trying to protect—”

“I don’t want to hear it!” I shouted. “You were trying to protect me? Where was all this familial protection when I was being cast aside?” Thea looked like I had struck her, but I continued. “All of you have made impossibly bad decisions. But somehow, I’m the only one who gets punished for mine.”

My voice shook, my hands shook. I was furious. “What I have of a life has been completely turned upside down and wrecked because of the man you were going to marry! I was happy in Italy. For once in my life I could breathe, and then…” Hugh had crossed behind me, put his hands on my shoulders. I half wondered if he would stop me if I physically went after Thea. Which princess would he protect? “Then you have the nerve to tell me how I get to react when my house, my privacy, my livelihood are threatened once again because of this goddamned family.”

Thea had paled, her eyes wide. “Caroline…I didn’t mean…”

But I had had enough of empty royal promises. “I don’t want to hear anymore. I won’t help, I’ll go back to Italy. Just leave me alone.”

“You were contacting Christian, a man we’ve been hunting for months. Of course we want to be involved.”

“But I was trying to help you.” The words tumbled out of me.

“Help me?” Thea’s expression went glacial. “The apprehension of Christian is a matter of national security. I have a team of trained professionals—what makes you think you could send him a flirty email and bring him in when they couldn’t?”

My mouth opened. Closed. I felt tears in my eyes. It was all I had ever done in this family. Try to make everyone happy. And it seemed I had finally been told that I was completely useless.

Hugh’s hands tightened for a moment, his thumbs brushed the back of my shoulders, but when I pulled away to go back to my room, he didn’t come with me.